Chapter 22
CINDY
Consciousness returns in fragments, each piece bringing a new kind of hurt.
First the taste of copper and battery acid coating my tongue. My mouth is desert-dry, lips cracked. Did I bite my tongue when the taser hit?
Second: the fire in my muscles. Every fiber feels like it's been twisted and wrung out. Even breathing hurts, my ribs protesting each shallow inhale. Tasers don't just drop you—they scramble everything, leaving your nervous system misfiring for hours after.
Third: the rhythmic pounding in my skull, each heartbeat a hammer blow against the inside of my cranium. Whether from the taser, the fall, or being dragged into a van, something rang my bell hard.
I try to swallow and nearly gag. How long was I out? Long enough for them to transport me somewhere. Long enough for the adrenaline to wear off and leave me feeling every single abuse my body has suffered.
My mind starts to catalog my injuries. I move my fingers and try to rub my face, but my arms won’t move.
Can’t move.
The smell hits me—sharp, chemical, wrong. It coats the back of my throat with each breath, thick enough to taste. My eyes immediately start streaming, the vapors so concentrated they burn.
Gasoline.
Not just a splash. Not just a puddle. The fumes are so thick I can see them shimmering in the air like heat waves. My skin prickles with awareness—one spark, one static discharge from these ropes, one careless cigarette, and I become a human torch.
I force myself to breathe shallowly through my mouth, but that just makes me taste it more. The nausea rises fast. Morning sickness combined with gasoline vapors. I swallow hard, fighting the urge to vomit. If I throw up now, aspirating while tied to a chair...
My chest tightens. The baby. What are these fumes doing to the baby? I hold my breath, but that's not sustainable. I have to breathe. Have to risk poisoning us both with every inhale.
I open my eyes and try to focus. Once again, I try to wipe my eyes. My muscles ache.
Why?
Think, Cindy.
The taser. I remember the taser now, the way it turned my muscles to liquid fire and dropped me like a stone.
I try to move and immediately discover why I can’t move. I'm sitting on a hard chair. My wrists are bound behind me, the rope biting into my skin with each small movement. I shift, trying to find a more comfortable position.
It’s dark, but I can still see around me.
“What the hell is that smell?”
I know it’s gasoline, but it doesn’t make any sense.
And then it does.
I look down and see that the floor around me is wet.
They've soaked the floor with gasoline.
The realization hits me in the gut… For a moment, I can't breathe. My chest constricts with panic, making each inhalation a struggle. They mean to burn me alive. That's their endgame. That's how this story ends.
My hand instinctively moves toward my stomach or tries to. The ropes prevent the motion, but the intention is enough to send another wave of terror through me. The baby. Oh God, the baby.
I force myself to stay still, to breathe through the panic that's clawing at my throat like a living thing. I need to think. I need to assess. I need to find a way out of this nightmare that doesn't end with both of us dying in flames.
The room around me comes into focus gradually, my eyes adjusting to the dim lighting.
It's some kind of warehouse or garage, with high ceilings and industrial fixtures casting harsh shadows.
There are windows high up on the walls, but they're too far away to provide any hope of escape. Assuming I could free myself.
I can see shapes in the darkness—machinery of some kind, maybe cars or equipment draped with tarps. The smell isn't just gasoline now; I can detect motor oil and something else. Cleaning solution. The kind we use in the garage to clean engine parts.
I’m in a garage. Not the Tremaine garage, somewhere much bigger.
I pull at the rope around my wrists, but it’s no use. It’s too thick. I look around and see I’m close to a wall. There’s a bench to my left. There has to be something there I can use to free myself.
I try to scoot the chair, but my legs aren’t working.
My ankles are tied to the legs.
Once again, panic threatens to take over.
I need to center myself. I close my eyes and let my mind drift, searching for something to anchor me in this moment of absolute terror.
And I find Luka.
Not the Luka from the motel room, desperate and bleeding and fierce with protective rage. Not the Luka who kidnapped me.
I find the Luka from yesterday, when the world was simpler and the only danger was the risk of falling deeper in love than I already had.
I let myself remember the way his mouth feels against mine—not desperate or demanding, but reverent. Like he's worshipping something sacred. I think about his hands touching me. My dangerous man, who could be so gentle one second and violent the next.
His hands knew every inch of my body. I love how he whispers things in Russian that I don't understand but feel in my bones anyway.
I think about his proposal, delivered in the wreckage of my old apartment with blood on his shirt and terror in his eyes. The way he looked at me, like I was his entire world, like losing me would unmake him completely.
He's coming for me. I know he is. Luka doesn't give up. He doesn't surrender. He'll tear the city apart brick by brick before he lets them hurt me.
Assuming they didn’t kill him.
No. He can’t be dead. I’m certain I would feel it. He’s out there.
I just have to survive long enough for him to find me.
The sound of footsteps echoes through the warehouse, pulling me back to the present with jarring brutality. I force my breathing to stay steady and my body to remain relaxed. I won't give them the satisfaction of seeing my fear.
"Awake already?" The voice is familiar, though it takes me a moment to place it. When I do, my blood runs cold.
Drew steps into the light. I see everything I need to know in his face. This isn't just about money or territory or whatever twisted game he and Anna are playing.
My brother wants me dead.
I have to bite my tongue to keep from reacting.
Anna materializes beside him like his shadow.
There's a third person with them, a man I don't recognize but who radiates the kind of quiet menace that makes my skin crawl.
He's older, maybe in his fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair and expensive clothes that don't quite hide the bulk of a shoulder holster.
Everything about him screams professional, from his polished shoes to the way he holds himself.
"Miss Russo," he says, his voice cultured and pleasant.
I keep my breathing slow and even and stare back at them.
"Come now," Anna says with false sweetness. “Say hello to our friend. This is Mr. Kozlov.”
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out he’s Russian.
“Fuck off. All of you.”
The man chuckles. “I knew she was feisty, but this is more than I can hope for.”
"Now, now," Anna chides, stepping close. She's wearing designer jeans and heels. "That's no way to greet family. Especially when we've gone to so much trouble to arrange this little reunion."
The older man steps forward, his hands clasped behind his back like he's inspecting merchandise. "Allow me to introduce myself. Yuri Kozlov.”
I've heard Luka mention the name. He’s never talked to me about it, but he did ask if I had met them. I knew they were a rival family. If they're involved, this is bigger than just Drew and Anna's twisted need for revenge.
"What do you want?" I ask, though I'm afraid I already know the answer.
"What we've always wanted," Drew says, beginning to pace in front of me like a caged animal. "Money. Power."
“Sorry, I don’t have either,” I reply.
I keep working at the rope. I can feel my skin shredding under the coarse fibers, but I don’t stop.
Drew sneers and shakes his head like he’s looking at a pile of shit. “I can’t believe that asshole wants you.”
“Believe it,” I retort. “And when he finds me, he’s going to fuck you up.”
Anna laughs. “Oh no, you think he’s going to find you?”
I don’t let them see my fear.
He has to find me.
“Let’s just say my Bratva guy is better than yours,” Anna says with a smile. “We win. You lose. Your new boyfriend loses.”
“Jealous?” I ask sweetly. “I saw your Bratva guy. Trust me, you can keep him.”
“Careful, Cinderella, you’re talking about his nephew,” Drew chides.
My eyes go back to the older man. He looks vaguely familiar. Have I seen him before?
"Six months ago, Luka intercepted a shipment meant for my organization. Inside that container were very valuable items. Items I want returned."
The rope gives another millimeter. I can feel individual strands snapping, but there are still too many holding me. "Even if that were true, I wouldn't know anything about it. Luka doesn't involve me in his business."
"Perhaps not," Yuri concedes. "But he'll involve himself in yours. You see, Miss Russo, you've become quite valuable to us. Not for what you know, but for what you represent."
"Bait," Drew adds with obvious relish. "Sweet, innocent bait."
My stomach clenches with something that has nothing to do with morning sickness. "He won't fall for it. Luka's too smart."
"Is he?" Anna tilts her head, studying me like I'm an interesting insect. "Smart enough to resist when we send him pieces of you? Smart enough to think clearly when he knows his precious girlfriend is in another man’s bed?”
The casual way she says it, the matter-of-fact tone, makes it worse than screaming would have. She means it. They all mean it.
“We know he thinks you’re worth at least five million,” Yuri says. “My shipment was worth about that much. Let’s see if he’s willing to trade.”
"You're monsters," I whisper.
"We're survivors," Drew corrects. "And survival sometimes requires unpleasant choices."
And then I remember that dinner. That man had offered to buy me.
Luka shut him down.
Drew reaches into his pocket and pulls out a silver lighter. With a practiced flick of his thumb, a flame springs to life, small and bright in the dim warehouse.
"Do you remember this?" he asks conversationally, holding the lighter up so I can see it clearly. "Dad gave it to me for my eighteenth birthday. Said it was a family heirloom."
I remember. I also remember him using it to burn my arms when I was thirteen, holding the flame just close enough to blister my skin without leaving marks that would be too obvious. The memory makes my wrists work faster against the rope, desperation overriding caution.
Drew begins to move closer, the flame dancing hypnotically as he walks. "I always loved how you looked in firelight, Cindy. So pale and pretty. Like a little ghost."
He crouches down beside me, close enough that I can feel the heat from the flame on my cheek. The gasoline fumes are a reminder of how close I am to dying a horrible death.
"Just think," he murmurs, his voice soft and intimate, like we're sharing a secret. "All it would take is one little accident. One tiny slip of my finger, and whoosh." He makes a soft sound, almost like a sigh.
The lighter moves closer, close enough that I can feel individual tongues of flame licking at my skin.
"I wonder what Luka will think when he finds what's left of you. If there's enough left to identify, that is. Gasoline burns so very hot."
I can’t breathe.
This can’t be happening.
They need me alive. I’m useless dead.
At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.